Power and Freedom: Politics in Spinoza

Abstract

The theological-metaphysical tradition proposed a series of distinctions by means of which it intended to oppose freedom and necessity. It claimed that all things that occur “by necessity” are “by nature” and, on the contrary, all things that occur “by freedom” are produced by “free will.” A necessary operation or natural necessity was the result of an efficient cause, while a free or voluntary action was the result of the articulation between the formal cause (the rational essence of the agent) and the final cause (the télos of the action), so that freedom was constituted in relation to the ends or final outcomes. Identifying the natural and the necessary, on the one hand, and the free and voluntary, on the other, this tradition declared that, being omnipotent and omniscient, God could not act out of necessity but only of freedom and, therefore, free will. Created in the image and likeness of God, man too was conceived as a free agent because he was endowed with free will. To act with a view to ends or final outcomes presupposes intelligence or reason; therefore, voluntary action was understood as rational or intelligent action, and natural or necessary operation was understood as blind and raw automatism. These distinctions led to defining human actions in terms of one precise question: what is and what is not in our power?